Deadly Towers

The Good
The land of Willner needs a new king, and Prince Myer is the likely candidate. Unable to contain his excitement, he ventures out to a nearby lake and looks upon the water. A reflection, not his own, tells him that the demon Rubas has plans to build a castle in the northern mountain. There, he will ring seven bells that will unleash his army of monsters upon the kingdom. Myer has to go to Rubas’ domain and burn down all seven bell towers. Deadly Towers was released around the same time as The Legend of Zelda. Brøderbund saw how popular Nintendo’s gem was and capitalized on its success.

Myer starts out with a sword to fight creatures that inhabit the game world, and it behaves the same way as Link’s: flying out from his armor into the path of any creature foolish enough to stand in his way. If Myer comes in contact with a creature, he will lose health points, and if he loses all of them, the game is over. Dispatched creatures leave behind Ludder, which is used to buy items and potions in shops.

The shops are only found in dungeons, and since the dungeons are huge, you will need to map them since the game does not provide one. Since creatures only leave behind a small amount of Ludder, it will take you a long time to accumulate a sufficient amount. Fortunately, those you dispatch will respawn when you leave the room and then come back. Once you have the items, you can bring up the sub-screen by pressing Select and activating them. The sub-screen is also used to drop any items you don’t want.

When you are done with the upgrade, it’s time to go to the cliff wall, navigate the path to the tower, climb up the tower itself, and defeat the guardian. Once you've done all that, the whole room will flash in psychedelic colors, and a bell will appear on the platform. You can then get the bell, go back to the cliff wall where the holy flame is, and do a little burning. This entire process repeats until all seven bells have been burned and the entrance to Rubas’ domain opens up. Besides all these screens, there are also secret rooms and parallel worlds containing free power-ups, both containing a lot of creatures huddled in one spot, and you have to dispatch all of them before you can collect it.

The soundtrack in Deadly Towers consists of melodies no longer than twenty seconds, but these never grow old. Their styles range from sinister to feel-good. The dungeon music reminds me of Taskset’s Jammin’; you have this one piece of music, and instruments are added and taken away as you travel between different rooms. Graphic-wise, I think Myer and the creatures are well designed, and the path/towers you negotiate have different color schemes to make them less boring.

The Bad
There is some kickback when you are hit by any creature, and it is long enough that if you are near a broken ledge, you will fall through it if you have your back turned to it.

You can complete the game without negotiating the dungeons, secret rooms, or parallel worlds. If you do anyway, the only way you can access them is by bumping into walls and seeing if you are teleported. With the dungeons, you can’t leave the way you came in. Why couldn’t Brøderbund just have a ladder somewhere in the castles that leads down?

As I said before, the game ends when you lose your only life. When you do, you are given a password that just warps you back to the start of the game.

The Bottom Line
Deadly Towers is an action/RPG game along the lines of The Legend of Zelda, that was so unpopular that the game did not see a release beyond the NES. The highlight is navigating the dungeons and buying upgrades at shops, but you will have trouble finding these dungeons in the first place unless you deliberately bump into every wall you see. Furthermore, there is some kickback, and you will pay dearly for it if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But these problems aside, the graphics and sound are very good, and the game can be played again so that you can play it a different way next time.